TOMMY CRAIG has revealed the dressing-room discussion that transformed St Mirren’s season in the space of six days – and stopped the talk of when manager Danny Lennon would be sacked.

Buddies No.2 Craig can, after 28 years in coaching and management, rightly be described as a professor of pressure and a graduate in what it can do to those unable to stand up to it.

And that includes the vivid memory of the day he almost collapsed in the home dressing room at Celtic Park minutes before a clash with Rangers.

But, throughout it all, Craig has always understood the ground rules as they apply to management, which is why he and Lennon went to the St Mirren players with a piece of advice before they drew with Aberdeen and then beat Hearts last week.

“We said, ‘Don’t worry. Play with abandon again because you don’t need to be concerned. We’re the ones who need to worry because, if we don’t turn around what could be a disaster, we’ll pay the ultimate price,’ Craig said.

“And, to be fair to the players, they were the ones who galvanised themselves after that.

“The modern day player needs good man management more than they do good coaching. The player of today is more opinionated than the ones from my generation, and you can’t afford to lose them.”

Craig refuses to be thought of as Lennon’s mentor but he did have an intimate understanding of what the Saints boss was going through while living with speculation that his job was being assessed game-by-game.

He said: “The first thing I told Danny was that nobody should get annoyed by speculation about a manager’s future.

“That’s part of the deal when you’re involved with a club in the top flight.

“We took the plaudits when St Mirren beat Hearts to win the League Cup Final last March, so you have to deal with the negative headlines when they come along because you’re doing poorly.

“The greatest pressure I ever felt in my life was when I was Billy McNeill’s assistant at Celtic Park and we had a Scottish Cup tie at home to Rangers.

“We were lagging behind them in the championship and privately we both knew the title was a long shot.

“Celtic had also gone out of the League Cup and the Scottish Cup was our only chance of a trophy. At five to three that day, the team went out for the kick-off and I went over to a mirror in the dressing room to do up my tie.

“At that moment my legs buckled underneath me. I was shaken and it felt like a moment of weakness.

“It hadn’t happened to me before and it’s not happened since, but I walked down the tunnel wondering what had happened. We won the match 3-0.”

Craig survived his moment of personal discomfort, but he’s worked with others who were less fortunate.

He added: “I’ve seen managers crumble in the face of extreme pressure and when you lose the plot, the next thing that goes is your job.